MATTHEW KAPSTEIN : BUDDHISM BETWEEN TIBET AND CHINA

Exploring the long history of cultural exchange between ‘the Roof of the World’ and ‘the Middle Kingdom,’ Buddhism Between Tibet and China features a collection of noteworthy essays that probe the nature of their relationship, spanning from the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) to the present day. Annotated and contextualized by noted scholar Matthew Kapstein and others, the historical accounts that comprise this volume display the rich dialogue between Tibet and China in the areas of scholarship, the fine arts, politics, philosophy, and religion. This thoughtful book provides insight into the surprisingly complex history behind the relationship from a variety of geographical regions.

Includes contributions from Rob Linrothe, Karl Debreczeny, Elliot Sperling, Paul Nietupski, Carmen Meinert, Gray Tuttle, Zhihua Yao, Ester Bianchi, Fabienne Jagou, Abraham Zablocki, and Matthew Kapstein.

Learn more about the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.

Learn more about the thirteenth Dalai Lama and the Ninth Gangkar Lama, Karma Shedrub Chokyi Sengge at the Treasury of Lives.

• Paperback
• 480 pages, 6.00 x 9.00 inches
• ISBN 9780861715817

Matthew T. Kapstein was introduced to Buddhist studies through the courses of Richard H. Robinson (1926–1970) at the University of Wisconsin and subsequently earned his A.B. in Sanskrit at the University of California (Berkeley) and PhD in philosophy at Brown University. During periods of travel and residence in India, Nepal, and Tibet, he studied with leading contemporary Buddhist teachers, including S. N. Goenka, H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche, and H. H. the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, among many others. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, where he is currently professor emeritus of Tibetan studies. In 2018 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Kapstein has published over a dozen books and numerous articles, among which are a general introduction to Tibetan cultural history, The Tibetans (Oxford 2006); a translation of an eleventh-century philosophical allegory in the acclaimed Clay Sanskrit Library, The Rise of Wisdom Moon (NYU Press, 2009); and, most recently, The Many Faces of King Gesar (Brill, 2022), with anthropologist Charles Ramble. With Kurtis Schaeffer and Gray Tuttle, he has authored and edited Sources of Tibetan Traditions, published in 2013 in the Columbia University Press Sources of Asian Traditions series. Kapstein collaborated with the late Gyurme Dorje on the translation of H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche’s renowned Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History, a milestone published by Wisdom Publications in 1991. His other Wisdom publications are Reason’s Traces: Identity and Interpretation in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist Thought (2001) and an edited volume, Buddhism between Tibet and China (2009). 

Other books by Matthew Kapstein: 
The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism 
Reason’s Traces